Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cashless village, financial numeracy, mobile money, orality on February 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »
In The End of Money (see citation, last entry) David Wolman suggests that poor people may taste the ‘cashless’ (i.e. digital) society early on, due to a ‘leapfrog effect’ that has already delivered mobile phones to over a billion people without bank accounts – many living in villages which have yet to be reached by national road or electricity networks.
“Almost overnight the phone has evolved from a one-trick pony (more…)
Posted in Microfinance, The village, tagged governance, orality, savings account, trust, village finance on January 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Savings bank in Cambodia. Keeping the savings promise is about far more than record-keeping.
Poor villages remain out of reach of many essential microfinance products. This is not a product development problem; it is a chronic and agonizing market failure resulting from a failure in the governance of microfinance transactions.
Oliver Williamson writes that “[a] governance structure is usefully thought of (more…)
Posted in Microfinance, The village, tagged farm, literacy, loan contract, numeracy, orality, seasonality, time value of money, trust, village finance on April 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Poor villagers in the developing world are a distinctive, underserved microfinance segment. There are nearly a billion rural people who make less than $1.25 a day, and most are illiterate or marginally literate, so microfinance documents are inaccessible to them.
There are three widely neglected factors that make rural microfinance fundamentally different from urban microfinance. (more…)
Posted in Microfinance, Orality, tagged accountability, democracy, icon, loan contract, oral culture, oral tool, orality, tally, thumbprint, transparency on December 2, 2010| 4 Comments »
Why are there not finger-counting icons and/or tallies (see right) on every passbook owned by every illiterate client in microfinance?
This small change could make microfinance more comfortable for poor borrowers and poor savers, and contribute in a small way towards our shared goal of ‘access for all’. (more…)
villagefinance 